Despite her aversion to putting music up on Spotify’s platform, Beyoncé broke a new record on the streaming site. As reported by MTV UK, she's now the first artist in history to have three of her albums reach over a billion streams.
As any Bey fan knows, the best way to access the singer’s entire discography is through purchasing it on iTunes or streaming her music on Tidal. In 2013, she released her self-titled fifth studio album on iTunes and waited nearly a year before putting it on Spotify. Her latest visual album Lemonade is still only accessible through Tidal or iTunes purchase.
Since its release, her artist page on Spotify included a note from the streaming service that reads “Beyoncé’s album Lemonade is not currently available on Spotify. We are working on it and hope to have it soon.”
Still, these obstacles haven’t stopped the Beyhive from streaming the shit out of the music she does have available on Spotify. Her 2011 album 4 recently passed one billion streams, which helped the artist earn her new record-breaking title. 4 joins I Am...Sasha Fierce and Beyoncé, while her singles “Love on Top” and “Run the World (Girls)” both have a combined 400 million streams alone.
And the lack of Lemonade hasn't stopped Spotify and streaming services at large from dominating the musical landscape. There were nearly 400 billion streams in 2017. Still, Spotify is facing some heat both in the form of a $1.6 billion lawsuit over licensing issues and Apple Music hot on their heels in terms of U.S. subscriber numbers.
Bask in the glory of Beyoncé's streaming success and watch our interview with Mike Will Made-It about the wild story behind their hit "Formation."
